As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, an overriding concern of Manatee County businesses is recruiting and retaining their workforces. That’s what we are hearing across diverse industries as our team at the Bradenton Area Economic Development Corp. works with established local businesses to provide the resources they need to succeed.
Intelligent chatbots are proving that there’s no talent shortage when you know how to personalize employee recruitment. Just ask Bipul Vaibhav, founder and CEO of Skillate, a startup in India with an AI-based talent intelligence platform. "We help organizations quickly find the most qualified candidates, using intelligence to speed up hiring while improving the candidate experience and addressing diversity and inclusion objectives," said Bipul Vaibhav, founder and CEO of Skillate.
Leah Sakas still remembers being told not to run like a girl. Sakas is vice-president of central operations at Zillow, the online real estate marketplace that’s become so popular among millennials for "Zillow surfing," that it was featured as an SNL skit parodying chatlines for the over-30 crowd. But Zillow isn’t just capturing the market of millennial homebuyers and late-night browsers. It’s also attracting a millennial workforce seeking out employers who deliver on issues such as diversity and pay equity.
From hospital nurses to delivery drivers, positions opened up Thursday as various employers held job fairs in Southwest Ohio. If you were a prospective worker passing by the Dalton Street post office building this afternoon, USPS workers with "now hiring" signs were trying to get your attention and attract you inside. Noel Marra came in from Warren County to apply for one of 75 open positions for mail handlers, carriers and mail processing, starting at $18.51 an hour.
Jon Shooshani and Sebastian Elghanian got a bird's eye view of how quickly the pandemic changed tech workers' priorities. The founders of JOON, an employee benefits software platform that automates the reimbursement process for workers, said they almost immediately began to see shifts in how people were using their benefits. Employees were quickly redirecting their gym membership benefits towards wearables and home workout equipment, and companies were expanding benefits for a home office and childcare — things they normally didn't pay for.
"I just don’t think women should be in an orchestra," said Zubin Mehta, longtime conductor of the Los Angeles and New York philharmonic orchestras. Mehta wasn’t alone in that opinion. The Berlin Philharmonic did not hire a woman until 1982, and Vienna held out until 1997. But starting in the 1970s, American orchestras made a small change in their hiring practices that made a big difference in the number of women musicians hired—from less than 5% in 1970 to 40% in 2019. The change was the "blind audition."